Mainstream media outlets are beginning to advance the idea that Ethereum and Bitcoin are traditional competitors. This notion does not make much sense. Ethereum and Bitcoin are two different expressions of a similar notion, with important differences that ultimately make them fundamentally different.
While it is true both have great uses for online gambling, especially where it’s illegal, calling them competitors might be akin to calling fiat currencies competitors. While in a way they are, they are much more symbiotic in today’s political economy than competitors generally are considered to be.
Ethereum champions a different set of innovations than Bitcoin. For instance, in Ethereum’s “Virtual Computer” notion, distributed participants create entire business models on a blockchain through programmable contracts. This is much different than the payment system and digital token protocol of Bitcoin, which is undoubtedly best used today as a transfer system, although this has come under contention recently per the Block Size Debate.
In the online creation communities themselves, people scantily dismiss the other as worthless. There are qualms held by Bitcoiners of Ethereum, and of Ethereum users against Bitcoin – in some cases – and, for the most part, they view each other as potentially symbiotic technologies. Any sober thinker would consider each a radical experiment with radical risks. Ultimately, that’s all they are, nothing more. Hardly competitors.
The notion put forth by the mainstream press that Bitcoin and Ethereum are somehow competitors is akin to the notion early in Bitcoin’s existence put forth by mainstream media that Bitcoin was anonymous. It’s false, and misleading. It fails to understand the entire notion of open collaboration projects, especially a underground online creation community such as is the crypto-currency space. This isn’t a traditional industry. These aren’t traditional economic actors.
Nathaniel Popper’s piece in New York Times , entitled “ Ethereum, a […]
